Dial Tone
by Cassie Jamie
Summary: He'll always remember the phone call. [Slash]
1. Dial Tone

**Disclaimer:** closes eyes tight Nope, they didn't appear here. Not mine.  
**Title:** Dial Tone  
**Pairing:** McKay/Sheppard  
**Rating:** T  
**Summary:** He'll always remember the phone call.  
**Genre:** Dark/Angst, AU, fic with permanent injury.  
**Notes:** I felt inspired by the latest episodes and I needed a break from the chicken soup fic. I'm gonna write something more for this if people like.

* * *

Rodney will always remember the phone call. 

He'd been sitting at the dinner table with Jeannie, reconnecting while Carson and other people made their way through piles of personal files. He'd been talking about John, about how they'd gotten together and a kid-friendly, censored for civilians version of how they'd gotten together. Jeannie had smiled brightly at him.

She was still smiling when John had called, sounding hardened and bitter. It was over before Rodney could get a word in edgewise. There were days he could recall the sound of the dial tone in his ear as Jeannie had taken the phone from him.

It was the last thing he'd truly _heard_. After that it was all work for Rodney, refusing himself the simple pleasures from friends. He pushed himself so hard that he began to make clumsy mistakes; he assumed the role he had in his home, pretending to be different. It had gotten his parents to treat him almost human like. Rodney'd hoped it would work with John.

Not so.

And it hurt, so Rodney changed tactics. He tried to be brave with Ford when they found him on a planet. John and Teyla had been captured, he was alone with the hopped up weapons specialist, and later he could only say that it was the fear that had pushed him to scream at Ford as he had.

The door to his quarters slid open and it was the intrusion of the light from the hallway that made him realize it had. The lack of one's hearing, the price he paid for the argument with Ford, meant the simple things like privacy were a little harder.

John spoke and Rodney stared at him, until John remembered. He didn't do anything to communicate at that point, simply set down the dinner tray on the side table and sat down beside Rodney. His lips moved again, slowly, deliberately – Rodney could lipread it was the one thing he'd managed to master in three months. ASL was taking much longer since Elizabeth, Kate, and Dr. Membleson from Linguistics only had a few days a month to teach him.

Rodney looked away. He glanced at the food, knowing it wouldn't be anything he actually wanted. Then a piece of paper was dangled in front of his eyes.

John was sorry. It was his superiors. It was the same thing Rodney had been told for weeks and he'd stop caring. It didn't matter anymore.

Another piece of paper. Some more bitter lies that held no value.

Getting to his feet, Rodney carefully pulled the hand from his arm. He couldn't deal with John touching him then, couldn't handle it after all the things those hands had done. They'd taken away the pain of Gaul and Abrams, given him the most exquisite pleasure, helped work out math problems quicker than the science division could.

He moved to his trunk; he kicked the lid up, looking over all the things still inside. His best treasures – letters from Jeannie, his metronome, a few random pictures – were tucked inside, though the most precious of them was hidden far beneath everything. He pulled it from the trunk jerkily and tossed it at John.

The chain of the dog tags struck John in the throat, the plates smacking him in the face. John picked them up before they fell on the bed, looking at Rodney and saying that they weren't John's anymore. They were Rodney's.

Rodney turned away, hoping for the light of the hallway to penetrate his purposely dark room. It took a few minutes, but it came and when he turned around the dog tags were no where to found.

The sound of a dial tone resounded in his head.


	2. Red Droplets

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I've begged and they're stubborn.  
**Title:** Red Droplets  
**Pairing:** McKay/Sheppard  
**Rating:** T  
**Summary:** It wasn't the General's face that he'll remember.  
**Genre:** Dark/Angst, AU, fic with permanent injury.  
**Notes:** Companion to _Dial Tone_.

* * *

It wasn't General Landry's face that John will remember for the rest of his days. 

He'd been sitting in his room, taking a break from sorting through recruits, when Landry walked in. It had taken a minute for John's thoughts to separate from what he wanted to do to Rodney next time he saw him, but when he did, he wished he hadn't.

The General had said just a few things, including what would happen to Rodney if John didn't stop the foolish relationship he'd had going. It was threatening and angry and John choked back a yell as the man turned to leave.

He thought out every word he was going to say to Rodney, the looks he'd give and how he'd explain it. Just a break he'd say. But first he'd needed to hit something, so off it was to the gym, passing Kavanagh and his fucking _smile_ on the way. He stopped himself from punching the asshole in the mouth.

Once he'd pounded the bag into submission, John knew he couldn't do it to Rodney's face. He'd never go through with it and both their careers were on the line; no, he'd have to call Rodney at Jeannie's house.

He'd taken the long way back to his quarters, walking as slow as he could. Jack O'Neill, wearing a visitor badge and looking shocked, set one hand on his shoulder as he walked past, said something John didn't hear.

The sound of the dial tone met his ear when he first picked up the handset. He listened to it for a minute and with leaden fingers dialed.

After that there was just stolen conversations that always ended in arguments and not the fun ones they'd used to have. They worked together and that was it.

John missed his best friend, even though he was there every day.

Everyone knew something was different between them. People remarked and it was after Radek had to publicly humiliate Kavanagh that everyone knew. It didn't take long before the rumor mill started to talk about them – John left Rodney, Rodney left John, there were other women, there were other men. Not one came close to truth.

Then the planet came where they found Ford. And what John would remember forever was the crimson blood.

When they found Rodney, he was hanging unconscious from a tree. He was bleeding from his ears and mouth, droplets fell to the ground below him as he swayed in the semi-darkness. Beneath him was Ford, dead and cold to the touch, and John remembered that his focus changed then. He could send Ford's body back to his family, it was over. Rodney was alive, but limp as a rag doll.

Carson told him that Rodney had taken multiple blows to the head. Rodney would never hear again.

John took to bringing his ex-lover dinner most nights. He supposed it was his way of assuring himself that Rodney was still alive, but Rodney usually ignored him and didn't move until John went to leave. He never gave any sort of sign that he understood when John told him that he was sorry.

Then the one day came where he walked in, forgetting that Rodney couldn't hear him and for the first time in weeks, Rodney actually looked directly at him. His eyes piercing and accusing, until John slowed down his speech so Rodney could read his lips.

But Rodney looked away after a minute and John was getting fed up. He needed Rodney to forgive him and he ripped a piece of paper from the pad on the nightstand, scribbling down words that sounded useless but he still wrote them.

Rodney got to his feet and walked away, going toward his trunk. John immediately started writing another note. He didn't see Rodney pull his old dog tags, the ones he'd reported as lost to Command, from the bottom of the trunk nor did he see Rodney throw them. He only felt them whap him in the face, the chain stinging as it smacked his neck.

John grabbed them and looked at Rodney, telling him that they'd been a gift, they were Rodney's. But Rodney turned away, and John held the tags closely to him.

Then he rose to his feet without a backwards glance, red droplets falling in his mind.


	3. Smooth

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.  
**Title:** Smooth  
**Pairing:** McKay/Sheppard  
**Rating:** T  
**Summary:** They'd all been shocked by his decision.  
**Notes:** This is the follow up chapter to _Dial Tone _and _Red Droplets_. There is death, but not suicide. You are forewarned.

* * *

When Rodney made the decision to go back to earth on the next Daedalus run, his entire department was shocked. Rodney McKay, genius, was voluntarily leaving his position of power. But no one celebrated; Kavanagh actually asked him to stay. Radek surmised it was the guilt of what he'd done that made him ask. 

Many asked him why or if he was going to return. Radek tried to help still the deluge of questions – he knew what brought Rodney to that decision and thought it the best. Rodney had only just started to surface from his deep depression brought on by the loss of his hearing and the loss of his lover, and he kept being dragged back down by John's mere presence.

The senior staff's reactions were mixed. Carson and Elizabeth had expected it, Teyla wished him well though it was obvious that she'd been upset that he was going and Ronan was silent. Bates looked as he always did, but he couldn't look at Rodney after the announcement.

John immediately tried to get him to stay. Rodney resisted all the offers, excusing himself when he knew his resolve was being tested.

And so he went, three days later. Everyone made sure to say goodbye, except John who thought Rodney would seek him out for one last talk.

That didn't happen and John kicked himself for two years over it. He sent letters to Rodney with the mail the Daedalus took and he attached little videos in the data bursts, nothing that could be interpreted into something that could get him court-martialed but Rodney would understand.

Nothing ever came back. Radek would get a random letter here and there, Carson as well, but everyone else just got notes on their birthdays and on holidays. John complained once that his were sterile – crisp white paper, folded into a card shape, with words denoting the holiday on front, and something like "Happy birthday. Hope it's nice. –R" inside. Nothing warm like the letter Carson had gotten inside his card, or the little trinket he sent to Teyla.

Rodney sent him a hallmark card after that. It had a picture on the front of two children, a boy and girl, holding hands and Rodney had crossed off the message ("Best friends are the greatest gifts.") and written, "Better? –R".

John never complained again because he knew Rodney at least read his letters. And even if Rodney'd been trying to be mean, John could deal with that.

He tried once to visit Rodney, making the Daedalus trip with plans to spend a week with Rodney, because they were going to make up and be friends. He knew it. Only there was just one snag – Rodney had managed to schedule all his closed door meetings and trial experiments to be conducted while John had free time, and when John was in meetings, Rodney was outside the SGC.

Dejected, John went back to Atlantis and spent all of his transit time trying to not think of where they'd gone wrong.

When the third year of Rodney's absence came, the letters, gifts and cards, all stopped coming. It was three months before John could take a leave and with Elizabeth and Carson, the trio made the trip Earthside. Elizabeth and Carson were ushered off to meetings and John found himself alone with Landry who looked older than he did before.

Hesitant, John broached the subject he'd only spoken of once before with the man, "Sir. I'd like to know where Dr. McKay is."

It seemed that the General aged ten years right then. His mouth twitched and he, grudgingly, told John that don't ask, don't tell was gone. A liberal democratic administration had come in (something Atlantis knew about anyway) and had decided that the policy was archaic when there were other concerns they'd rather face.

John must have visibly brightened, but then Landry followed up with the words, "There was a clot..."

The drive to the grave was short, hidden in a smallish private cemetery as per Rodney's directions. He'd been buried far in the back, beneath an aging weeping willow; John found it appropriate. The tears started before he'd even seen the stone.

It was white marble, rough on the top but smooth on the face and the letters indented.

_Rodney Andrew McKay_

_1965 – 2008_

Nothing else was listed. Nothing saying he was the beloved brother, son, boyfriend, husband. Just a name and years and John fell to his knees, clutching at his tags and wondering what power in the world had hated them so much as to finally let them have a chance and ruin it at the same time.

Carson and Elizabeth stood behind him, quiet and unmoving. Their tears were inward, shed in silence.

It was two hours before any of the three found the strength to leave.


End file.
